Internal Issues
by Saori Aki Orimi
Summary: We always knew Malik had problems. No, Malik, contrary to popular belief, you DO need your insides to live.
1. Counselor Issues

Internal Issues

Chapter 1: Counselor Issues

* * *

Why they came back to Japan was a big mystery to Malik. He supposed it had something to do with Isis's work at the museum. But he still couldn't figure it out. 

He also couldn't understand why she told him he had to go to 'school.' But she told him that it was for his own good, so he supposed he had better.

He supposed it was amusing that the others were vaguely nervous around him, save Ryou, who had really been under his yami's control during most of the 'Battle City' fiasco, and therefore didn't remember much.

He couldn't understand why they had all these useless rules. Like that one about the clothes. If he wanted to wear the cape his yami had worn, why did it matter? If he decided that it was much too nice a day to be wearing that stupid uniform and came to school in off-white shorts and a t-shirt with the collar and sleeves cut off, why did they care? Why did they care that his blonde hair went past his shoulders? (Ryou's was longer- why didn't they bother about his?)

Malik Ishtar was sent to the counselor after the first week.

"Ishtar-kun?" the woman asked, admitting him. She was about 40, maybe; gray-streaked black hair pulled back into a bun, severe glasses, business skirt suit. Almost cliched.

He rose from the chair he had been fidgeting in and entered her office. It was neat and sever, like her. The niggling, 'cliche!' feeling in the back of his mind increased.

"I am Ms. Kibishi." she said. "Now, I believe we are here to talk about certain... problems that you've been having."

I'm here for that, Malik grumbled in his head. You're here because it's what they pay you to do.

"Let's get down to it. Why did you assault another student with a plastic knife?"

Oh, so that's what this was about? He thought it was because he had shown up for the third time in as many days in something other than the uniform. Really, he had worn it the first two days of school. Wasn't that enough?

"Oh, that?" he asked. "I wanted to see if it could cut well enough that I could open up my stomach."

Ms. Kibishi paled, looking at him faintly over her glasses.

"I... see. Why would you want to 'open up your stomach?'"

"To get rid of it, of course! And the intestines, and the liver, and, and, all of the insides!" he ranted, shuddering. He hated to think of his insides. They squirmed and made icky feelings.

"Why on Earth would you want to do a thing like that?" she asked, shock etched clearly onto her features.

"Because they do weird things without my knowledge! Except the lungs, I guess they can stay... But the rest of them! Like, like, the heart! Always beating! I can feel it! And the stomach making weird gurgly noises, and the _spleen_! Who knows what that does!" His voice was becoming progressively higher-pitched; he couldn't stand it, all this thinking about his insides.

His desperate eyes fell on the letter opener on her desk.

"Ha! I will get them out! I will get them all out!" he ranted, grabbing it. Ms. Kibishi's eyes went wide.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she shrieked, snatching the letter opener and throwing it across the room. "You need those to survive, you know!"

"No I don't!" Malik exclaimed. "I don't! Mariku said so!"

"Mariku?" she asked.

"He's my yami." he explained, forgetting about the insides. Her hair was falling out of her bun, and her eyes were wide in her pale face. She was breathing heavily. It was quite amusing, actually.

"Your yami?" she queried.

"Mou hitori no boku." he affirmed.

Her eyes darted about, landing on a piece of paper and a pen. She started scribbling on it, brushing her hair out of her eyes wildly.

"This is beyond my expertise." she said, thrusting the note at him. "You may go. The session is over. Give that to your guardian."

"You mean Rishid?"

"Whoever your guardian is!" she said almost hysterically. She all but shoved him out of her office and slammed the door.

Malik shrugged, heading out of the school.

Rishid was waiting for him by the gate.

"Riiishid!" Malik called, bouncing over to him and handing him a note. "The counselor wouldn't let me take out my insides."

"Good." Rishid said. Malik pouted.

"She told me to give this to you!" He passed him the note.

Rishid read it over, the normally grave expression on his face turning to one of almost fury.

"What is it, Rishid?" Malik asked.

"That idiot woman recommends that you be sent to an institution."

"What's wrong with that?" he asked innocently.

"You'd be separated from Isis, me, and everyone you know. You wouldn't be underground, but you'd be locked up, all cozy in a cell." the man explained. Malik's eyes grew wide with hurt.

Why would that woman want to do that to him? First she wouldn't let him take his insides out, and now this? Separate him from his family, the only thing he really loved?

Fury and pain collided in him, causing a stirring that he recognized. He'd wakened Mariku.

The first student to walk into the counselor's office the next day found it a bloody mess, with her mutilated corpse in the middle of it.

Mariku did not take kindly to those who made his hikari feel that way.

* * *

n.n Andthat is the first installment of Internal Issues. 

Some notes:

In the first season, Ryou _is_ challenged about his hair- there's the irony. (kudos if you caught it)Bakura comes and seals that particular teacher's soul in a lead figurine.

Kibishii means 'strict' in Japanese.

Mou hitori no boku: Translates literally to "another one person of mine." Simply put, "another me."


	2. A Trip to the Doctor

Internal Issues

Chapter 2: A Trip to the Doctor

* * *

"Come on, Master Malik, it's time for your doctor's appointment." Rishid called up the stairs.

"Don't want to go!" echoed down at him. Rishid sighed. His brother could be so difficult sometimes.

Actually, he reflected further, that comment had to make him the king of understatement. Malik Ishtar was not just difficult. He was terrifying, smart, inventive, original- and psychotic. It didn't help that his darker half encouraged him in his psychosis.

"Master Malik, I drew up fake records and everything. We're going."

Sometimes it was simpler to use fake records rather than the real ones. After all, the real ones gave explanations that no regular doctor, especially one here in Japan, would believe.

"Do we have to?" A tousled blonde head appeared at the top of the stairs. Kohl-lined, soulful lavender eyes pouted down at him.

Rishid was far from immune, but he steeled himself against Malik's "look" and nodded.

"Yes, we do."

The blonde pouted a moment more before emerging from his room and coming down the stairs. He wore a dark violet tank top and khaki cargo capris that looked like they had come from the girl's section. Rishid sighed. His brother's fashion sense was definitely screwed up.

"Ready?" Rishid inquired. Malik glumly nodded, and followed the taller man out the door.

If the trip to the doctor's office was fairly docile, the check-in process was anything but. Malik panicked when they reached the waiting room, requiring that he be dragged in and earning him a lot of stares.

After all, it wasn't every day you saw a boy with blonde hair, dark skin, and suspiciously girly clothes, let alone a _teen _panicking and 'running for it,' so to speak. Rishid had to fetch him back, but not before he had nearly bowled into a young couple and their infant.

Finally they settled into the waiting room seats, as Malik fidgeted, muttering to himself. After ten minutes he announced, "Escape time!" and made to get up, only to find Rishid had grabbed his collar.

"… I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes." Rishid agreed.

"Damn."

"Ishtar-san?" the nurse called from the door. Malik's already-large eyes grew wider.

"Please Rishid don't make me go!"

"Come on, Master Malik." Rishid said, relentless. He towed the boy after the nurse. She led them to a room smelling of antiseptic. It was pristine white, making Malik's golden skin and Rishid's dark cloak stick out.

"If you would sit there." The nurse indicated the paper adorned examining table. Malik meekly sat, one foot twitching uncontrollably toward the door.

"It says here that he's on medication, anti-psychotics?" The nurse turned to Rishid for confirmation, who nodded. He had had to make some provision for Malik's... extreme behavior. She made a mark on the clipboard.

"Any other medications? Allergies?" she inquired.

"None." Rishid said.

"Right." she said. She turned to the twitching boy on the examination table. "I'll have to take your pulse and blood pressure."

Malik watched in fascination as she took down a black strip connected to a dial and a pump.

"Hold out your arm." she said. He did so. She deftly wrapped it around his bicep, squeezing the pump to make it tighten around his arm. She watched the dial intently as the pressure increased, held, and then receded like a sigh. She unstrapped the thing from his arm and took his wrist with thumb and two fingers, counting in her head. She scribbled more on the clipboard and left a mystified Malik.

"The doctor will be with you shortly." she said.

Malik was distracted by what he had noticed close to him.

It was shiny. It was sharp. It was a scalpel. His hand edged involuntarily towards it.

"Master Malik..." Rishid's warning voice rang out. Malik whined to himself, but withdrew the hand. But, oh, how he wanted it! Just think of all the internal organs he could neatly remove with that thing!

The door opened and the doctor entered, a neat little Japanese man in a white coat that matched the room.

"Ishtar Malik?" he inquired. Malik looked up.

"That's me!" he chirped. The doctor smiled.

"You look pretty good. It says here, though, that you haven't had all your immunizations..."

"Immunizations?" Malik quirked his head to the side.

"Actually, he hasn't had any but the most basic." Rishid said.

"Hmm." the doctor said. "We'll have to remedy that."

"What are we doing?" Malik asked.

"Shots." the doctor replied.

"Shots?" Malik stiffened. Shots, as in, putting things _in_ him? As if he didn't have enough things in him already? That appendix thing Ryou had explained to him the week before, for instance. _That_ he really didn't want. It was a mass of chemicals, for Ra's sake!

"It's okay." the doctor said soothingly. "It's just a little prick." Completely misunderstanding his consternation, of course.

"You're going to put things _in_ me?" Malik screeched, eyes wide and frantic.

"Umn..." The doctor glanced at his sheet. "Of... course not. We'll even take some blood, after."

"Really?" Malik asked, grinning and bouncing. He like blood. Just not inside of him.

"Of course." the doctor said nervously. He exited and returned with about seven syringes.

"You might want to look away." the doctor said.

Rishid shifted nervously. He wasn't sure if the doctor's deception was going to work and he wasn't sure what would happen if it didn't.

The syringe entered Malik's arm and slowly pressed its contents into his vein. Malik stiffened visibly as it did, snapping around to stare at the doctor after the needle left his arm.

"You put something _in_ me!" he shrieked. "I don't want something in me! You didn't say you were going to put something in me! You put something fucking _in_ me!" The golden teen was getting hysterical. Time to put a stop to all this before he woke up his yami.

"It's just things to keep your insides from hurting you, that's all." Rishid soothed as the poor doctor stood there, shocked and bewildered.

"Really?" Malik hiccuped, turning to Rishid for assurance. Rishid squeezed his hand.

"Of course. And after, they really will take some of your blood out."

"Yay!" Malik cried, bouncing happily and sticking out his arm. "I'm ready for more shots now!"

"Er... Right." the doctor said, attempting to play along. The shots passed without incident, thought the Egyptian boy's happy stare as blood was drawn out was a bit unnerving.

They left the office with Malik a good deal cheerier than he had been when they entered.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Rishid asked.

"Yes!" Malik answered unashamedly.


	3. Chipped

Internal Issues

Chapter 3: Chipped

* * *

Malik had run off one day shortly after Battle City. He didn't know why, or where. He just ran. Hd fun running. Feeling the wind on his skin, through his hair.

Something would catch his eyes, and he'd run after it. A dog. A truck. A bird. He found himself in a park somewhere. Completely lost. Completely sans Rishid.

...This could be bad.

He decided to amuse himself in the meantime by setting up everything he needed to survive.

He was halfway through building a shelter out of fallen branches when Rishid showed up.

"Master Malik." was all he said.

"Oh! Rishid!" Malik exclaimed. "How did you find me?"

Rishid reached into his cloak and pulled out... a GPS?

"You have a GPS?" Malik asked, amazed. Rishid seemed so... traditional. Behind the times.

Rishid nodded. "I also have this." He pulled out an MP3 player. "This." A cell phone. "And this." He pulled his cloak around and tugged out a laptop. A bloody, laptop, for Ra's sake. Malik's world had just turned upside down.

"You have all _that_ hidden in your cloak and I didn't even know?"

Rishid blinked at him. "Well, you never asked, Master Malik."

"Wait." Something had just occurred to him. "How do you get a GPS to find _me_?"

"A chip."

"A chip!"

"A microchip."

"As in a Ra-damned piece of machinery _inside _me!"

"Well, yes." Rishid said uncomfortably.

"There's something _inside_ me!" Malik demanded. His yami, still close to the surface after having been sentenced to stay dormant unless woken, stirred.

_There's lots of things inside you._ he said.

**Huh? What?**

_Like kidneys, for example. And intestines. And other strange organs that are really unnecessary. _

Malik's eyes widened at the idea. He didn't like this at all. Unnatural things should be out of his body. Unnecessary things should be out of his body. Now the question was; how to get them out?

And of course the simplest answer was: Cut yourself open and take them out.

Things went downhill from there.


End file.
